Master of Plagues by D. B. Reynolds

Meet Stuart Duffelmeyer, a soon-to-be top graduate of NYU's School of Veterinary Medicine. Stuart is targeted by eight of his college classmates once they learn he's desperate to break his virginity. His classmates lure him to a sleazy motel where they play out a heinous prank. His night ends in utter disappointment after learning that his date was just a beautiful mechanical doll. He suffered severely as a result of their callous behavior and feels he must get even with his tormentors.

A chance encounter allows him to come across a magical Hebrew talisman with indescribable powers. Once the talisman is consecrated, Stuart is granted miraculous powers over the creatures and elements of the Earth. Little do those who've wronged Stuart know that his absolute domination over the creatures and elements of the Earth will bring plagues of unspeakable horrors into their lives. This will teach the eight of them that asking for his forgiveness is the only way to terminate the plagues inflicted upon them.

Excerpt:

Eight egotistical NYU graduate students promised to get one of their classmates some of the best sex of his life just before the big graduation day. The woman they promised to set him up with, a true knockout with charm and wit, awaited him inside some cheap motel just a short borough from the NYU campus. The major lowlife player in the prank was Anthony Greenstein. At five-foot-ten and a hundred and sixty pounds, Anthony was the proud owner of a lean and muscularly frame, highlighted by glistening blue eyes and a clear, robust complexion.

A head of thick black hair accented his boyish good looks. Never would Anthony have shed the arrogant demeanor he’d been groomed to carry through life. He enlisted the services of another major prankster named Megan Piccirillo. Megan had to be one of the cutest Italian girls in all of New York City. With a body to put a Greek goddess to shame, she loved shaking her long black hair with thick roots from side to side. Her natural olive skin glowed like a setting Caribbean sun. Anthony and Megan decided to pick out some old motel right at 720 East 33rd Street in the Bronx. The name of this rat hole was called The American Shore Motor Lodge. The neighborhood was beyond bad and the people were much worse. Drugs and prostitution and murder flourished. Total disenfranchisement ruled the atmosphere. Gunshots suddenly erupted from in front of a rundown building just across the street. Another drug deal in the Bronx, New York had gone sour.

Four masked gunmen pumped a volley of slugs into a slickster who thought he’d gotten away with stealing their drugs and money. The price some silly fools had to pay. For such an affront, it was business-as-usual in this particular section of the South Bronx. Another body was sprawled out in the street in his own pool of blood. Long after neighbors peeked out their windows, someone decided to call nine-one-one. Forty minutes would be the maximum time before police arrived to process the murder scene.

Anthony and Megan were scrupulously cautious of being robbed or losing their lives. The gunshots were heard quite clearly from inside the room where they stood. Emergency vehicle lights spilled into every residential and business window within the vicinity. The hotel room Anthony and Megan occupied was infested with the biggest rats and cockroaches. Large rat holes were chewed into the adjacent walls. Final arrangements were made to make the prank a success. Coming from a wealthy Jewish background, Anthony had no problems paying for the room. He threw in a little extra to make some of the disgusting hotel undesirables disappear.

“Anthony, what was the shooting outside all about?” Megan asked, frightened from the unexpected outburst of violence.

“This is the Bronx, sweetie,” Anthony nodded his head. “Anything goes in this borough.”

“Her measurements are a perfect 36C bust, a 24 waistline, and a 36 hips.”

“No man could ask for more. How tall is this beauty?”

“A lean and trim five-feet-seven,” Megan chuckled, looking down at the masterpiece of a mechanical sex doll. “Now, I’m jealous of a doll that’s not even living or breathing.”

“I made sure it came with remote control features.”

“How technological of you.”

An irritable squealing noise shot from one of the corners of the room. The noise suddenly sent Anthony into a wild frenzy of fright. The sound of a creature in search of a meal resonated deeper into the room.

“Doesn’t sound like anything we’d be interested in,” Megan feared, clamping the arms of Anthony with her icy cold hands.

“This room is starting to give me the creeps.”

“Must I remind you what borough of New York City we’re in?”

The biggest rat one could’ve imagined jumped on top of a night table. The critter stood right up on its hind legs. Its razor-sharp teeth flashed right before Anthony and Megan. A pair of menacing, glowing eyes stared straight at Anthony, like he’d owed him some big money.

“Where’d that big giant rodent come from!” Anthony cried out, his back literally to the wall. “Megan, I hate rats! I hate them! I hate them! I hate them!”

“Anthony, this is New York City. What the hell did you expect?”

Megan reminded her classmate how New York City was flooded with big rats. Food and garbage were plentiful to keep them growing larger and larger.

“The Greenstein household has never had to deal with living around huge rodents.”

“Welcome to the real world.”

“Rats turn my stomach inside out. They carry real nasty diseases.”

“Anthony, let’s finish setting up here in the room. John and Taylor are gonna be bringing Stuart over real soon.”

“Rats just give me the------.”

“Anthony!” Megan fizzled, stopping him in mid-sentence. “I hate ants, buddy. Always have and always will. Ants have given me the creeps since I was a little girl. You surprise me by acting like you’ve never seen a big rat. When our ancestors got off the boats here in New York, the rats got off with them. Now, let’s finish getting things set up.”

The humongous rat seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Walking into the low-lit room was another prankster in the major plot. Dana Potts strutted across the room with her mouthwatering hips. Her luscious curvy backside swung any direction it desired. Quite sexy and attractive, she couldn’t have been prouder of her mocha brown skin and her shimmering hazel eyes. Being a mixture of Nigerian, Brazilian, and French, she had to be one of the finest specimens from the female gender.

“Got the goods?” Anthony asked Dana, staring up and down the walls and ceiling with his weary eyes.

“Paranoid, Anthony?” Dana smiled, holding a large brown sack in her left hand.

“One of the biggest rats in all of New York City was just in this room. There’s a hole in one of these walls the size of a bank vault. Like I told Megan, I hate rats more than anything on this Earth.”